The province of Beira Litoral is dominated by the city of Coimbra, which, with Guimarães, Lisbon and Porto, forms the quartet of Portugal’s historic capitals. Situated on a hill above the Rio Mondego, it’s a wonderfully moody place, full of ancient alleys and lanes, spreading around the country’s oldest university. As a base for exploring the region, the city can’t be beaten, with Portugal’s most extensive Roman site, Conímbriga, 16km to the southwest, the castle at Montemor-o-Velho, 32km west, and the delightful spa town of Luso and ancient forest of Buçaco under an hour’s journey to the north.

Beira’s coastline, from Figueira da Foz north as far as Porto, remains one of the least spoiled in Portugal, backed by rolling dunes and pine forests. There’s some development around the pretty lagoon town of Praia de Mira, but the only major resort is Figueira da Foz and even this remains thoroughly local in character. To the north of the region, Aveiro is one of Portugal’s most attractive provincial towns and sits on an elaborate network of canals.

Following the delightful Rio Mondego upstream from Coimbra, you’ll come to see why it has been celebrated so often in Portuguese poetry as the “Rio das Musas” – River of the Muses. A tributary of the Mondego, the Dão, is the source of some of the country’s finest wines, while there’s an equally beautiful route along the Rio Vouga up to the pretty little town of Vouzela. To the north is the impressive convent at Arouca, and the serras of Freita and Arada, both peppered with remote hamlets and offering more scenic routes for drivers. To the south lies the Serra do Caramulo, where the village of Caramulomakes a good base for mountain pursuits. East of Coimbra, as the land slowly rises towards the mountain Beiras region and the Serra da Estrela, the first foothills are encountered in the Serra da Lousãand the Serra do Açor, rustic regions containing a range of pretty settlements such as riverside Góis and the incredibly sited, schist village of Píodão.

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Forest fires and the Bombeiros Voluntários

Portugal’s famed green countryside is ravaged each year by forest fires, and the problem has worsened markedly in recent years – it’s estimated that ninety percent are caused by human activity, whether it’s arson or carelessness with cigarettes, bonfires and barbecues. Matters aren’t helped by the country’s timber industry, which has replaced native tree species with the highly flammable eucalyptus and pine. Peak fire season is midsummer, but in drought years forest fires break out as early as January and as late as November. You don’t need to drive through central and northern Portugal for long before seeing the evidence of past fires – hillsides burned black and torched trees – or the telltale plumes of thick smoke from the latest conflagration. On the worst days, ash falls to the streets in distant towns and cities, and major train lines and motorways are closed.

Extraordinarily, the firefighting service that has the unenviable task of dealing with the problem is almost entirely voluntary. The country’s 20,000 or so Bombeiros Voluntários make up over ninety percent of Portugal’s firefighting forces, with the few (and far better equipped) professional corps (Bombeiros Sapadores) based in the cities or working privately for the country’s timber and paper-pulp concerns. You’ll see Bombeiros Voluntários vehicles in every region – helping out with ambulance duties too as part of their remit – and the volunteers are usually the first and only firefighters on the scene when a blaze breaks out. Equipment and vehicles are often wholly inadequate; in the past, urgent appeals to the EU have led to specialist aircraft and foreign crews arriving to help.

It is, of course, horribly dangerous work and firefighters lose their lives every year. For this reason – and for their astonishing success rate in saving local homes and properties – the Bombeiros Voluntários have an almost heroic status in Portugal. Rare is the town without a street or avenue named after them, while proud municipal statues and memorials to their deeds proliferate.